Birth Story

On February 9th, my due date, I had my 40 week appointment at 11:30. I scheduled it with Dr. Codd because he would be the doctor in the hospital a week later, the 16th, when I chose to potentially be induced if I hadn't had the baby yet. At the appointment, he asked me if I wanted to have my membranes stripped. I almost said no because I didn't want to go through the pain of it but as soon as he said, "It gives you higher chances of going into labor in the next 72 hours." I wanted this little guy out of me so I decided to do it. As soon as Dr. Codd finished and left the room, I noticed a lot of fluid had come out of me and I wasn't sure if that was normal or not. I think I must have been in denial because I went home and took a two hour nap (which I'm really glad I did now because I needed the rest.) When I woke up, I noticed I was still leaking a lot of fluid so I texted Jake and told him I thought my water may have broke. He said to call up the doctors office, so I did. I told them what was going on and the nurse said, "Well it's either your water broke or it's urine.." I knew it wasn't urine so she ended up telling me to come in so that they could check to see if it was my water that broke. I hurried and got dressed and drove over. At this point, it was around 3:45pm. They called me back and a new doctor was now on duty so he came into the room and was about to check me when I said, "Water is leaking down my leg right now.." and he says, "Yeah, I'm not even going to check you. Head to the hospital. Your water broke!" I immediately wanted to start crying. Not because I was sad but because I could not believe I was going to finally have my baby boy! I called Jake and told him to meet me at home. Luckily my bag was already packed so we were able to head to the hospital right away. By about 5 o clock, they put the IV in (which was more painful than the epidural shot) and got me all hooked up. I started to get contractions around 6:15pm and I was really hoping I wouldn't have to get induced but I knew it was probably going to happen. About an hour later, the nurse decided to give me a little bit of pitocin because I wasn't progressing and we wanted to get things going especially since my water broke at noon and that's when I should've come in haha. Slowly, I started to feel the contractions more and more and when I got to a 3, I was in SO MUCH PAIN. It felt like the worst period cramps I've ever had in my life. The nurse had warned me that it takes the guy who does the epidurals up to 40 minutes to get to the hospital so if I wanted the epidural any time soon to let her know. I was holding back the tears at this point and I didn't know how much more pain I could take. I have no idea how women can do natural births like holy crap, so impressive! But anyway, I told the nurse to call up the epidural guy (not sure if there's a name for him haha) and luckily, he got there within like 15 minutes. He gave me the shot at around 10pm and soon after it started to kick in. I have a curve in my back and so because of that, it messed things up a bit and I could only feel the medicine on my left side. The contractions weren't as painful but I could definitely still feel them. So the guy came back in and gave me a little bit more of the epidural. After that, I literally couldn't move or feel my left leg and my right leg I could feel a little bit. I felt SOO good. I couldn't feel any contractions and I slowly progressed and dilated to a 4 and then 5. At around 3am, the epidural started to ware off and I started to feel the contractions a little bit. I forgot to mention that I had been throwing up all night. Also, I had really low blood pressure and my heart was racing so they had to give me some medicine for that. About an hour later, the contractions started to get worse. I was dilated to an 8 now and really wanted another dose of the epidural because the contractions were starting to feel extremely painful. I asked the nurse when I could get more and she told me she was a little scared to give me more because of all the medicine that was in my body already and how I was reacting it. She said she didn't want to get me more sick.. so I sucked it up and dealt with the pain. But at this point I was balling. I kept thinking, "If I'm only at an 8 right now and it's this painful, how will I be able to handle a 10?!" Somehow I was able to get through it and I quickly progressed to a 10. At around 4:45 am the nurse asked me if I wanted to start pushing. This was the part I was the most afraid of. My biggest fear was that I would tear and that it would hurt a ton but I realized it was going to happen eventually so I might as well start now. Jake was on my right and the nurse was on my left and the pushing began. Holy crap, this was the hardest part. Luckily, it wasn't painful because I would push with the contractions and that made it so I couldn't feel them as much. But the part that was so hard is that pushing is exhausting! I had Jake feeding me ice chips to keep me from passing out and I had him handing me a wet wash cloth to rub all over my face. Jake said to me the next day, "I had the most respect and love for you when you were pushing." He was so so helpful during this part. He cheered me on and kept saying things like, "Cmon you've got this!" and "You're doing so good babe" when I started to doubt myself. At one point he said, "Shaylee, he has tons of hair!!" And that gave me this huge motivation to keep pushing! Around 5:30am, the baby was ready to come out and so the nurse called Dr. Codd. (He happened to be on duty that night) We waited for him for about 15 minutes and man was it hard not to push. There is so much pressure down there that you have to try with all your might not to push. Finally, he walked in the door and said, "Go ahead and keep pushing while I set up!" Once he got there, it only took me like 15 minutes or less to push the baby out! He did have to give me an episiotomy because if he wouldn't have, I would have torn and it would have been a lot worse. When Wesley finally came out at 6:01 am, they had Jake cut his umbilical cord and then immediately put him on my chest. I have to be honest, it wasn't like this overwhelming love right off the bat. I was more in shock and thinking like, "Holy crap, wait.. this is my baby!!" Then like a minute or two later it all sunk in and of course I looked at Jake and started to cry. He was the most precious thing on the planet! I mean he was all purple and his head was shaped kinda funky at first.. but he was OUR BABY and that made him perfect :) He was 7 pounds 12 ounces and 21 inches long. That day I had so much adrenaline and excitement that I couldn't get any sleep.. but my body was exhausted. We were told by a few of Jake's friends from work that we would get a steak and shrimp dinner after the baby was born and we sure did! In fact, they brought me breakfast, lunch, and dinner for every meal that I was in the hospital for. I loved having my baby at the Madison Memorial Hospital. The nurses were amazing and everyone was so knowledgable and friendly. All in all, as hard as labor was, it was such an amazing experience. I wouldn't change any of it. I'm so grateful for my husband who is the best daddy in the world. He comes home from working 8 hours and doesn't complain once about changing Wesley's poopy diapers or having to hold him for an hour straight when he's fussy. I feel so blessed to have such a good husband! I also feel extremely grateful for our baby boy. He is such a good baby! He only wakes me up once during the night to feed him so I still get a good amount of sleep (knock on wood.) He is such a sweet little guy and he brings a new spirit into our home. Well, if you read through this entire post, you're a champ! Here are a few pictures from right after he was born :)